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JLeslie's avatar

What exactly does that NY abortion bill/law say?

Asked by JLeslie (65721points) March 20th, 2019 from iPhone

Anyone have a link to it?

How do you interpret the wording?

What was the goal of it?

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14 Answers

jca2's avatar

The goal of it is to take abortion out of the criminal statutes, so if it is outlawed on a federal level, it would not be a crime in New York state, and the person performing it would not be a criminal. Also, that abortions do not have to be performed by a doctor, which I am imagining is in case they are giving doctors who perform abortions a hard time on some other level, it could be performed by a physician’s assistant, or a family health practitioner, or a nurse, or a midwife.

JLeslie's avatar

@jca2 Does it make it legal to abort in the last trimester and kill the baby?

jca2's avatar

If the mother’s life is at stake then yes, it’s legal.

JLeslie's avatar

@jca2 Is it worded that it is legal to terminate the pregnancy? That is different than killing the baby.

jca2's avatar

It is legal to terminate the pregnancy if the mother’s life is at stake or if the fetus is not viable outside the womb (in other words, if the baby needs life support, then it’s legal). the way the right to lifers were putting it, a perfectly fine baby could be born and then killed and it would be legal, or a perfectly fine baby could be killed right in the mother’s womb right prior to being born. So ridiculous.

janbb's avatar

I have read many explanations that this is never a case of a woman carrying a healthy baby to term and then deciding that she wants it killed and the doctors kill it. Third trimester abortion is always because there is something terribly wrong with the fetus or with the mother’s health. It is always an agonizing decision and one that is not taken lightly by either the doctors or the parents.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

^^^ Right. In no way does this apply to woman who is 8.5 months pg saying “I changed my mind!” People who put that out there are sick fucks. It seems to me many rabid antiabortion people are sick fucks who get off on imagining unimaginable stuff.

3 of my grandkids were born 5 weeks early.

JLeslie's avatar

@janbb It’s simply illegal to abort and kill a third term viable baby in the US already. So, it’s not a matter of me thinking women or doctors do it, I always say every woman I know who had to terminate a pregnancy in the third term wanted and wants her baby.

My question is, is the NY law worded so it could be interpreted that a third term healthy fetus can be aborted and the baby terminated. @jca2 says it’s not the intent of the law to make killing third term babies legal. And I say baby not fetus, because I think we all agree 7th month and later that’s a baby. But, in the 7th month it’s not unheard of that the fetus needs medical support to live.

Of course, the Republicans are twisting it all and stating Democrats are ok with killing babies, which is absurd, and really pisses me off, but if the wording of the bill is vague (I don’t know if it is) then it leaves room for twisting.

It’s terrifying to me that people on the right say things like it’s never the case that a pregnancy endangers a mother’s life, and that women might be forced to continue pregnancies that out their life at risk. I understand why this type of protection is important. Even something as simple as older moms often are induced early for fear of complications. The government should not be mandating his long a woman stays pregnant, but I do think viability matters in terms of a legal right to terminate a pregnancy that will end up killing the fetus.

Right now the law of the land is the viability rule, so I’m not so sure NY had to pass this law now. The republicans are going insane. We are already at war, we didn’t need to put gasoline on the fire in my opinion, but maybe I don’t understand all the ins and outs of why NY thought it important right now.

jca2's avatar

I was told that NY did this now because with Kavanaugh and everything with the Supreme Court, you never know what changes are going to take place, and so this is in place so nobody has to scramble should any surprises happen on the bigger level.

zenvelo's avatar

It is essentially preserving the current standards as legal in NY if Roe v. Wade gets overturned. It does not introduce anything new.

JLeslie's avatar

I don’t understand how NY can have abortion legal if Roe v. Wade is overturned? If abortion becomes illegal in the country, then isn’t it illegal in NY? Or, is it just that it’s illegal, but won’t be punished in that case? What if they make a federal law and it can be punished by the fed?

Brian1946's avatar

If RvW was overturned, it wouldn’t mean that abortion automatically becomes a federal crime. That would most likely require an act of congress.

What it would mean, is that the individual states would be free to outlaw abortion.

In this context, if abortion is removed from the NY criminal statutes, then any anti-choice NY attorney general or other such empowered official, wouldn’t be able to prosecute anyone who gets one or any appropriately licensed MD who performs one.

In that case, I think both NY state governing bodies would have to pass any anti-choice laws. Given the blueness of NY state, the passage of any anti-choice statutes at the state level would face major obstacles.

seawulf575's avatar

@JLeslie I don’t see that anyone has actually pulled up the text of the NY Reproductive Health Act (S240). Here is a link to that site and on that page there is a link to a .pdf of the actual bill.

https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2019/s240

jca2's avatar

Today’s NY Times: Many states are now considering “Heartbeat Bills” which would make it almost impossible to get an abortion: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/opinion/abortion-ban-heartbeat-bills.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

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